Project 2, Cool Ideas

Some of the Dreamweaver websites were really creative. The clock, Wizard of Oz, and the one with the return tower were very memorable. There were also more errors in the websites than in last project, but I would have had errors in my site if we hadn’t been given the extra couple of days. The projector did make the colors in my site much lighter, more bland, and more blurry, but that won’t affect it online anyway.
Perhaps I’ll have an explosive image for escaping upon self destruct of the super computer, but of course if I did so the art page must still be accessible and working after the explosion and return to it from the home page. I did consider the idea, but didn’t have time make it, figure out if it was possible, or decide if it was a good idea.
Even though I double checked everything, I’m still slightly surprised my site went off without a hitch. The more complex any project is the greater the likelihood of errors. Even with the errors I’m impressed with a lot of the creative ideas everyone had.

Edward Perkins, Art 402

Check out this Website!

I happened to stumble across the website of the musician Jason Mraz. I love how creative and interactive it is, which makes me want to do so much more with my web design projects. The navigation is very simple and it is consistent with the entire website. I like how the information once you click on each heading in the navigation bar pops out from a different corner of the page. This element, plus the use of sound effects makes this website very dynamic. This website certainly relates to Project 2's theme of self portrait. Jason Mraz's website is certainly a figurative portrait of this artist. Check out the site and see for yourself what a fun free spirited person Jason Mraz is

http://www.jasonmraz.com

Danielle Sylos

tutorials!

Do you want to learn more about Photoshop? Don't know where to go? Look no further than the internet? The internet offers countless free photoshop tutorials? PSDTUTS+, a blog I follow on twitter recently posted 40 quality photoshop tutorials that might help with your website!

http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/web/40-quality-photoshop-ui-design-tutorials/

-Courtney Custodio

Sooo im in class right now enjoying a cran grape ocean spray and a honey nut cheerios cereal bar ! critique day, one of my favorite days to be in this class :) um. overall im happy with my project, i think i could have been more technical, but im a simple person soo it fits me

-thomas torres

I don't know

Project two is finally DONE!!!!! I love my website, i've put so much effort into it, I'd cry if it disappears. I really went all out, there was so much to do with this project even though i wasn't able to use flash. During the process of making the web site i had to go through tedious acts of repetitively inputting links and layers within images. At one point i really said this isn't cut out for me, my brains will explode before i finish a website on my own terms. So right now I don't know if you really want to proceed with this web designing phase or not. I don't knowwwwww.



-Kevin Ben Lee

the paragraph due with proj two

So I haven't done the paragraph that was due with the self-portrait project and I think it's due RIGHT NOW! Ugh

I just don't understand it. I guess I'll just re-read what prof. anderson wants and try to answer and be as elaborate as possible.

i think everyone had issues with this.. atleast on THIS side of the room hahaha ugh anyway, i can't wait to see the projects today :) i'm sure everyone did great!

-Vicki Almanza
art 201

Need to blow off some steam?

I know designing websites can be time consuming and frustrating so I thought I's compile a short list of websites dedicated to flash games that might help you kill some time and clear you head. Just try not to become too addicted.

1 - Kongregate
2 - Armor Games
3 - TowerDefense.net
4 - New Grounds

-Corey Thompson

A head start with Illustrator

Most of the time when creating something in illustrator you should try and make original vectors; either by hand in illustrator or by drawing out your idea and using the live trace tool to turn it into a vector. From time to time though we all find ourselves running short on time and/or creative inspiration. So here a a couple stock vector sites that might kick start your imagination or give you the foundation you need to create your own brilliant illustrations.

1 - Vector Portal
2 - Vecteezy
3 - I Heart Vector
4 - Dezignus

-Corey Thompson

What inspires you?

Looking for some inspiration? check out some cool illustrations from Javier Pacheco!

http://abduzeedo.com/beautiful-illustrations-javier-pacheco

-Courtney Custodio

Project 2

Projec 2 was crazy and time consuming but gained a lot of experience. Ready for today and work on exercise 10. Project 3 is going to be interesting and I am looking forward to it.

Good luck to everyone

Narak Mirzaie

I am so happy...

We finished Project 2!!!! It was much challenging than project 1 but I am glad we got to do something different. I am excited to see what our class came up with..I am sure they will all be dazzling. See you all next week...

-Araz Kuvakian, Art 201

I'm freaking out!

This semester is by far the most hectic semester I've had since..ever! I have so much to do and I really hope I finish this project on time. I barely have one page down.

I can't wait to see everyone's project though. I'm sure everyone is going to put my page to shame. At least I'll hear some interesting criticism. haha

p.s. CSUN STUDENT SHOWCASE TONIGHT. Kevin is going to be performing with his dance crew FASMODE and I'll be playing one of my instrumental pieces on guitar. :) |

-Vicki Almanza, art 201

An easy to do flash website?!?!?!?

How are those websites coming along? It sure is time consuming!!!!

Anywho, I am a fan of G4, a channel devoted to video games, and all things geeky. I was watching one of my favorite shows, Attack of the Show, and often they show viewers some cool and interesting websites. One of them was:

http://www.wix.com/create/website

This site allows anyone to create a Flash website with a drag and drop interface!!! Although to make a unique flash website it is best to use Actionscript, however this is a nice tool for quick and fast website making.

-Courtney Custodio

Dreamweaver is cool

I took a web design class before but was scared with html tags and dropped but still need to go on. Now got past that part and using dream weaver is cool to use with iwork and photoshop making website is still a lot of time to do.

I love pandora.

Created by the Music Genome Project, Pandora offers a unique Internet radio service by playing related songs not based on the likes and dislikes of other people, but based on how close together the songs are musically. This cool website is great for putting music on in the background while you surf or work.

-Araz Kuvakian, Art 201

Graphic Programs Strengths and Weaknesses

This is in response to Logan’s Art Software post, but I thought it was a topic that might be useful to everyone. Different graphics software is useful for different things.

If it’s Simple

For small images not involving gradation in colors MS Paint is very good. If you are creating an image from scratch, doing detailed pixel work, want only hand picked colors, clear cut edges, and precise perfect pixels (rather than an imprecise blurry brush) then Paint works best. The Photoshop pencil also has some problems. If you have any slowdown the stroke will come out like a series of circles. Paint won’t do this. Paint can’t zoom out to less than 1x so it’s unwise to work in it with huge images Paint BMP files open in Photoshop and you can make GIF files out of them easily.

If it’s Complex

Photoshop is best for fairly high res photographic files. The layers, transparency, gradient effects and the magic wand are really useful. I’m currently using it to fill in colors on character drawings. The magic wand saves so much time with this. Photoshop is the most versatile program of this list. The PSD file size is awful! Save them as LTZ compressed TIF files, include multiple layers if you wish, and you lose nothing.

If It Should Be Vector

Illustrator is like an advanced version of Paint to deal with the high res demand except that it is vector and also much less user friendly. “Paint Vista” is not easy to learn and it’s difficult to manipulate images in. This may be because it is vector. Paint images can easily be live traced with it and the result is usually good unless the image is really small.

Don’t Get It

Corel Draw is even more confusing than Illustrator I don’t understand it.

No Idea

I haven’t worked in Gimp. I don’t know much about it.

Like Photoshop

I haven’t used Paint Shop Pro, but I know Photoimpact. I was able to learn Photoshop faster because I had Photoimpact before it. Sorry if I said too much.


Edward Perkins, Art 402

Size Confusion

I’m not sure what the maximum size of a webpage that doesn’t scroll should be. Firefox, Safari, Opera and Explorer’s screen size all seem different. On top of this a screen filling page looks small on monitors with higher resolution. What the largest non-scrolling size for the average monitor and browser?

Edward Perkins, Art 402

AHHHHHH part 2

I'm Kevin Lee by the way =D

AHHHHHHH

WOW web designing takes so much work. Today i worked on my project, the transcending the universe one. From 11am-2pm, I've only managed to dish out three pages on my website. Each page wasn't even magnificent, all there is to it was an image and a qoute. It's because each picture must be scanned, colors need editing, and then i had to cut them up becuase the iamges i had were too big. Bottom line is, web designing isn't an easy task. Image how much time it took if i had only html, i would cry. This just makes me wonder if my website took so much effort, how much does it take to accomplish a popular website with animation and just mind blowing effects.

As Seen Through These Eyes - Free Film Screening with RSVP

Hello every one i just wanted to remind you for Thursday October 22nd Maya Angelou will come to Csun campus and she will talk about her peom "Now I know why the cage bird sings." I read her book during my junior year in high school and it was very interesting. It talks about her hardship that she went through as an African Amercian women. If you want more information for her event go to this link http://www.csun.edu/jewish.studies/calendar/calendar_fa09.html.

See you guys there


By: NARAK MIRZAIE

Self-portrait proj

ugh I regret not coming to class on Tuesday. If I knew there was going to be an exercise on Tuesday, I would have came. I finished the exercise but it took soo much of my time. I'm not missing class anymore.

I was actually surprised I was able to do the exercise by myself. I'm definitely going to use that animation technique in my project.

I just hope I'm able to finish it on time. I have yet to start :( it's totally my fault. I guess I'm just gonna have to bust my ass next Tuesday and Thursday.

Have a good weekend everybody!

-Vicki Almanza art 201

Project 2 =]

Hello!! ^_^
Well as we know..we were assigned project 2, the exampled that were shown to us were very creative. It got me very enthusiastic over the project itself. Learning all the different applications that the professor has taught twill help us all out =]. I can't wait to see how creative we get and to see all of your web pages.
-Melissa Flores 201

free photoshop textures!

Hey Photoshop lovers,

I follow an awesome blog called PSD TUTS on twitter, which is a great place to find tutorials and other tools for photoshop. Today, they posted some free wrinkled paper textures!

http://psd.tutsplus.com/freebies/texture/wrinkled-paper-textures/

-Courtney Custodio

Project 2

I am excited to start on Project 2 this week. Thank you to
Dreamweaver! It is much more user friendly than HTML. I am still debating
which route to go regarding how the navigation should be designed.
Wish everyone the best of luck on Project 2.

- Araz Kuvakian, Art 201

United Football League

Hello class i want to post this blog for all the sports fans in the class, and I wanted to let you guys know that the United Fooball League debuted yesterday on October 8, 2009. There are four teams that repersent these league California Redwoods, Florida Tuskers, Las Vegas Locomotives, and New York Sentinels. The tickets are really cheap if you can not afford going to a NFL because any how LA does not have a NFL team.

Narak Mirzaie

Dreamweaver vs. HTML coding

Hello Class!
I love what we are learning in Dreamweaver! I have all these ideas for the 2nd project but I think they would require using Flash which we have not learned yet. I'm interested to learn about Flash and Illustrator more and how to incorporate them with Dreamweaver.

~Tara Collins

Exercise 7

Although I was behind in today's lesson, I felt much more confident and competent, as opposed to our previous exercise. I followed the PDF file and with the help of Danielle and Thomas, I was able to finish. And I must say, mine looked kick ass. (pardon my French)

For some odd reason, I think this exercise should have been more difficult but by Prof. Anderson going through it first (WITHOUT stopping) and going over it again slowly, it helped many, if not all of us.

I'm getting excited now for our self-portrait project. I was intimidated by it because it seemed like a lot of material but after doing this exercise, I'm sure everyone (including myself) will design some pretty neat sites. Can't wait to see what y'all got :)

-Vicki Almanza

LA Magazine Website

Hi all!

One of my favorite magazines is Los Angeles Magazine. I came across their website today and was delighted by the clean layout and graphics on their site. http://www.lamag.com/ Using roll overs on the main page perhaps? ha-ha learn something new everyday....

-Araz Kuvakian, Art 201

Raster vs. Vector Graphics

Seeing Logan's post about "Favorite Image Editors" got me thinking...

Now, for the record I admit that beside being illustratively-impaired I may just be incredibly ignorant on the subject, and I welcome anyone to correct me on the following matter.

Raster Vs. Vector Graphics. Which is better? Which can we do without?

For the uninformed (and to state my own knowledge on the subject)...

Raster images are based off individual colored pixels. Raster image files are lines and lines of these pixels, and attempts to, say, enlarge the images spreads these pixels apart. Consequently, the larger a picture gets, the fuzzier it becomes. High resolution images have more pixels per area, so they require a lot more enlargement before the fuzziness becomes apparent.

Also, these pixels are why drawing curved lines will sometimes result in "boxyness" along the edges. Anyone can see this effect clearly in MS Paint, or any lo.w-res images.

Meanwhile vector images do not use pixels. Whereas pixel image data refers to "this many pixels at these coordinates at these colors" vector image data refers to only "Point A here, Point B there, and this color in-between." Basically a vector is just Point A and Point B; the computer virtually connects the points and fills in the color in-between. The end result is smaller in data size, and because it's only two points on a map, they can be scaled proportionally upwards and downwards. The overall image is kept sharp without fuzziness or loss of quality.

Now, as anyone who's used Photoshop (raster) and Illustrator (vector) can attest to, the two image types are very different beasts. Each has their own quirks and techniques and issues.

But...as resolutions become bigger, monitors become sharper (HD and beyond), and visuals become increasingly important do you think eventually it'll pay to just have vector graphics? Converters already exist for taking a preexisting image, like a photograph, and drawing vectors out of it.

Is Photoshop only truly useful for dealing with what raster images that remain? Or would it be better if Photoshop's abilities were retooled for vector graphics, or simply merged into Illustrator?

Can vector replace raster, is what I'm saying.


Posted by: Vince Ginsburg

Which is your favorite art software?

Some people like Photoshop, others like Illustrator, and there are those who even use MS Paint. What do you like to use and why?

-Logan

upcoming self-portrait project

I really hope I'm able to make a good webpage because the ones we saw in class we're too good haha Mine is going to look so basic and simple compared to those. I'm not great with web design, i'm pretty decent but those examples were too damn good haha

I've yet to work with "flash" and I saw that a lot of the examples worked with that program. I'm assuming we're going to learn about that sometime next week. I just hope it isn't as hard as this past Tuesday's exercise.

-Vicki Almanza

p.s. that critique we had was so harsh hahaha but soooo funny. i like that the people in this class don't take things to the heart. I can't wait for the next critique hahah